Cons

Bottom Line

Yabla is the YouTube of online language learning, letting you practice your listening skills by watching videos of native speakers.
But it isn't a structured learning environment.

Feb. 16, 2019

A language instructor once suggested I watch Spanish-language movies or TV shows with Spanish closed-captioning turned on, but English subtitles off. "Or," she said, "turn on both if you're having a hard time." Yabla is a bit like that. This subscription-based website helps you practice your foreign language listening and comprehension skills through videos. You can turn on or off transcriptions in the native language and subtitles in English. At the end of each video are interactive exercises for reinforcing what you heard while watching. Since I first encountered Yabla a few years ago, I've warmed to it considerably, but only by accepting that it's not a traditional language-learning program. It's ideal for someone who feels rusty with a language they've studied before, but not nearly as effective for beginners.

If you're starting from square one with a new language, Rosetta Stone and Duolingo are excellent options. They help you build a base vocabulary and understanding, and they're our Editors' Choices for paid and free language-learning software. Once you've maxed out on either of those programs, however, give Yabla a try.

Yabla's Languages

Yabla has content in six languages: Chinese, French, German, Italian, and Spanish, plus an English program for Spanish speakers.

Six languages—or five if you already speak English, and I assume you do if you're reading this—isn't an extensive selection, but at least it covers some of the most popular languages that people want to learn and practice.

If you need a language that isn't included, Duolingo has 30 languages and Rosetta Stone has 28, not counting English.

If you need to learn a hard-to-find language, you're best off looking at Pimsleur, Transparent Language Online, or Mango Languages. Pimsleur is almost entirely audio-based, and it's excellent if you don't mind learning by listening. Transparent is more interactive and is best for people who are self-directed learners. Mango is my least favorite of the bunch, but if you can't find a language elsewhere, Mango might just have it.

Yabla Pricing

A membership with Yabla costs $9.95 per month, $54.95 for six months, or $99.95 per year. When you buy a membership, you choose one language. For Spanish, you get both Latin American and Castilian content in the same program.

If you want to try Yabla before you join, you can watch select videos and do the exercises that go with them for free. There isn't a one-week trial or anything like that, however.

Yabla's price is competitive. It's about the same as what you'd expect to pay for other similar apps. Duolingo Plus, Busuu Premium, Babbel, and now even Rosetta Stone cost somewhere in the same range of $10-$12 per month.

If you already pay for Netflix, you could use that service to watch some foreign language videos and movies with closed captioning and subtitles in English when you buy a Chrome extension that enables them. There are two I've seen, one called LLN: Language Learning with Netflix and the other is Transflix. Both charge a small fee. You don't get exercises like you do with Yabla, nor a catalog that you can easily search and filter for videos in the language you want. But they may make sense if you already pay for Netflix.

What Is Yabla?

Yabla is a website and mobile app you can use to watch videos in a language that you're learning. You can watch with native closed captioning, subtitles in English, or both, hiding and revealing them at any time. While watching a video, you can pause, go back, slow it down, and look up individual words. At the end of each video you can optionally play games, which are really just exercises, to reinforce some of the words you heard in the video.

The most important thing to know about Yabla, however, is that it's not a full-scale language-learning program. It doesn't have any structure. You don't start on a particular lesson and work sequentially onto the next one. There's no recommended amount of time you should put into learning each day either. Rather, Yabla is more sandbox-style, letting you explore and practice completely at your own pace.

Yabla does have beginner videos that teach and explain different aspects of the language, and some of them are packaged as a series that you can watch in a specific order. Even so, they aren't scaffolded into a complete learning path. In my opinion, not having that structure makes even the entry-level videos less effective than they could be. If you're a new learner who is okay with a highly unstructured environment, you might find appealing. If you expect guidance and a series of lessons that build on another, you're not going to get it here.

Getting Started With Yabla

Once you've created a Yabla account, chosen a language, and paid for a subscription, you get access to the whole catalog of content for that language.

When you first get started, you see a landing page with videos, which you can filter by level of difficulty, topic, and region. There are three levels—beginner, intermediate, and advanced—but also a 1-5 rating to show difficulty. The topics, or themes, range from animation to the economy/business. The regional divisions depend on the language, but for Spanish, it's a simple choice between Latin America and Spain.

There's no correct place to start and no placement test to figure out your correct level, either. You choose the videos you want to watch. I've tested Yabla before in German and Chinese, but I gave a fresh go-around this time with Spanish, a language I've studied before.

I jumped into watching the Colombian version of the hit television show The Wonder Years, or Los Años Maravillosos. Instead of getting one 25-minute episode, you get a series of parts that are more or less segmented by the show's scene breaks. A "chapter" is equivalent to one episode, and each scene is called a "part."

For content like televisions series, which you want to watch in order, Yabla gives you a drop down menu in the interface that lets you continue watching the next part or chapter without losing your place.

When you watch a video, you see at the bottom of the screen two transcriptions, one in the language of the video and one in English (or English and Spanish for the English learning program). You can hide either one or both of them if you want. If you click on a word in the foreign language, its translation and other dictionary information appears at right. Any word you click also goes to your flashcard bank, which I explain later.

As you watch a video, small boxes line the bottom of the viewer to help you navigate. They operate both as a progress bar for the video and for finding segment of dialogue. If you want to back up to a particular line, you simply click on boxes until you find it.

Naturally Spoken Language, Real Videos

Much of the content in the intermediate and advanced levels come from real television shows, music videos, and commercials, so the actors speak at a conversational pace. Beginner-level videos are scripted to be slower and more enunciated, which is appropriate for new learners. You won't find idioms or highly poetic phrasing in beginner-level content, either.

The quality of the videos is all over the map. I regrettably watched a few political ads from the 2018 presidential election in Mexico, and the audio was blaring, like it was coming through a loudspeaker at a bus depot. Some of the beginner videos are over-scripted and star actors who seem inexperienced. It's cringe-worthy to see two people standing unnaturally close to another, staring into the other's eyes while speaking and then awkwardly turn toward the camera and speak to it instead.

Additionally, if you're used to watching videos in high-def or you care about that sort of thing, many of Yabla's videos will be disappointing. Perhaps the quality is lower to keep streaming and downloading speeds reasonable. Whatever the case, it's noticeable.

Games and Drills

At the end of a video, you can play what the service calls games to reinforce what you watched in the video. I wouldn't call them games so much as exercises. Some of them are quite challenging, and in a good way.

The easiest game is multiple-choice. In this game, Yabla replays a segment of the video you just watched with the transcription below and one word missing. You have to choose the missing word based on what you hear or what you can figure out from context.

Another game is the same but it uses a fill-in-the-blank method rather than multiple-choice, so it's a bit harder.

More difficult still is the Scribe game. Segments of the video replay, and you have to type the entire line in the foreign language. You can replay the segment as many times as you need, and you can even slow it down to 75 or 50 percent. If you get stuck, you can reveal the English translation or see individual letters and words if you get stumped.

The fourth and final game is a vocabulary review. Here, you review a handful of words from the video by identifying them by meaning from a group of words or by typing them when shown their translation.

After you play a set of games, you see a summary of how well you did. You also get clear progress markers to show which games you've completed and which ones you haven't.

Flashcards and Lessons

Beyond videos, Yabla has two more sections that you access from the main menu options at the top of the screen: Flashcards and Lessons.

The Flashcards section contains all the words you clicked while watching videos when you wanted to see their dictionary definitions. These words collect into a place where you can drill through them in flashcard style. You see one of your words in the foreign language, and below it, two buttons that indicate either you think you know the meaning or you don't. When you reveal the word, you self-assess whether you got it right. Additionally, you see a quick summary of the video where you encountered the word and even the line where you saw it. I like this context because it helps you not only remember the word, but also really get to its meaning, as the dictionary definition doesn't always do it justice.

The Flashcard game continues in this way, adding in more words as you master those you've already seen.

The Lessons portion of Yabla contains written text. You find here some explainer pieces that might help you work through some of the tougher aspects of learning a new language. For example, in Spanish, there are lessons about the difference between ser and estar. Both words mean "to be," but there's a distinction between them. In Spanish, the Lessons had a lot of material on idioms, yet again showing how Yabla is great for experienced speakers who are ready to tackle these more advanced topics. Lessons also show you videos that are related to the matter at hand, with a handy option to bookmark them to watch later.

Downloads and Transcriptions

Many of the videos on Yabla are available to download, which is great if you want to take your learning offline. Exactly what you can download depends on the video, and you don't know what your options will be until you hit the download button. Sometimes the only option is an MP4 file that has no description. Sometimes you do see descriptions of different files, such as a video file with Spanish and English transcriptions. And sometimes, one of the options (or the only option) is an MP3 audio file. It's helpful to have these materials but a little unprofessional seeming that there's no consistency.

When you download a file, it's yours to do with as you wish. You can also download just the transcriptions if you want to practice with written material instead.

The Listener's Tool

For people who have experience with a foreign language and need to keep it sharp or fine-tune their ear, Yabla is one of the best online language programs. Its videos cover a wide range of topics to keep you interested. I'm genuinely excited to watch more of the Colombian version of The Wonder Years. And some of the exercises that go with the videos are challenging. That said, I do not recommend Yabla to anyone who's picking up a language they've never spoken before.

If you're starting from scratch, gravitate toward Duolingo for its free exercises, or Rosetta Stone if you're willing to spend around $200 to develop a good base of the language. If you've tried Rosetta Stone before and it's just not for you, I recommend Fluenz for people who like interactive content and Pimsleur for anyone who can doesn't mind an audio-based program.

Yabla

Bottom Line: Yabla strengthens foreign language listening skills with thousands of videos and exercises based on them. It's excellent for people with prior language experience, but not ideal for novices.

Before joining PCMag.com, she was senior editor at the Association for Computing Machinery, a non-profit membership organization for computer scientists and students. She also spent five years as a writer and managing editor of Game Developer magazine, … See Full Bio